That night, I sat in my apartment with the TV turned to the Golf Channel, a large slice of peach cobbler that Stryker kept eyeing and Keegan Thompson’s autopsy report sitting on my lap. I read the report quickly in the car before heading home from Mrs. Graves’s. Now I could study it more closely. It was a fairly straightforward affair. There had been no signs of trauma. One small erythematous area had been found in the right buttock, around what looked like a tiny puncture wound. Two old, linear scars had been found spanning both buttocks. Remnants of blue fingernail polish had been found along the rims of the cuticles of digits two and three of the left hand and also on one and four of the right hand. There were no other significant findings, as his major organs appeared in good health and noncontributory to his death. The cause of death had been listed as indeterminate. The lab tests on his blood had not come back yet. I picked up the peach cobbler and leaned back on my couch. As I watched an early round of the US Open at Pinehurst, I couldn’t help but wonder why the wife had fought against the autopsy. Was there something she didn’t want to know? Better yet, was there something she knew but didn’t want anyone else to know? I made a mental note to try to contact her.
My phone rang. It was Mechanic.
“You busy?”
“Watching the Open and looking at Thompson’s autopsy.”
“You still think he’s connected to Kantor?”
“Can’t prove it right now, but it’s too hard for me to believe two rich, powerful men were found tied up in bed with the same type of knot the average person doesn’t know how to tie, with women’s lingerie on, and suggestions of sexual foreplay.”
“Anything in the autopsy?”
“Nothing that would make me think there’s a connection. He had a small puncture wound in his ass. Maybe the sex got a little rough, and he was being beat with something, like a spiky belt. They found some old scars across his ass. Maybe he was a sub and getting beat was his thing.”
“Who the hell are these people?”
“Rich people do crazy things.”
“Well, speaking of rich people, I was bored tonight, so I decided to see what our man Connelly was up to.”
“Without me even asking. How enterprising of you. What happened?”
“I followed him from work. He stopped at a taco restaurant over on Lake and came out with two large paper bags. He drove straight from there over to River North.”
“Back to the same house on North Kingsbury?”
“Yup. He walked up to the front door and rang the doorbell. You’re not gonna believe who opened the door.”
“Who?”
“Look at the text I just sent you.”
I opened up the message app on my phone and tapped on Mechanic’s text. I stared down at a photo of a shirtless Lance Greene standing inside the doorway, smiling at Connelly.
“It really is a small world,” I said. “A lawyer, a shirtless future Hall of Fame football player, and two bags of greasy tacos.”
“And a tall, beautiful Asian woman in thigh-high boots.”
“How is she involved?”
“I’ll get to that in a minute. About an hour after Connelly arrived, he and Lance left the house and jumped into his car. I followed them all the way east to the lake. They drove behind Soldier Field, then took a right turn in front of the planetarium. I stopped there and waited.”
“Why didn’t you follow them?”
“Because at that point, I was the only other car around, and where they were driving was really dark. They would’ve known I was behind them. So I waited. I knew they would have to pass me to come back out.”
“How long were they gone?”
“About ten minutes. They came flying back out and drove away from the lake. Not sure why, but Greene, not Connelly, was behind the wheel.”
“He was driving fast?”
“Fast as a fuckin’ cheetah. I ran two red lights and a stop sign to keep up. Not sure what got into them, but something happened.”
“They went back to the house on Kingsbury?”
“After they stopped at a liquor store. Connelly came out with three bottles of champagne. Dom. I could tell by the bottle. About twenty minutes after they got back to the house, another visitor showed up at the front door. Look at your text messages.”
I tapped on the new message he had just sent. A tall, curvaceous Asian woman stood at the door, being greeted by a cute, young white woman in a bathrobe.
“Where was my invite?” I said. “How long did this party last?”
“It’s still going on.”
“How long has it been?”
“Approaching three hours.”
“Any new arrivals?”
“Nope, just the Asian goddess.”
I thought out loud. “Just so I’m clear. Connelly and Greene, who we didn’t even know knew each other, drive over to the lake in Connelly’s car and disappear for about ten minutes behind the Soldier Field complex, then reappear driving like a bat outta hell but with Greene driving instead of Connelly. They stop and pick up some expensive champagne, then go back to the mansion, which I’m assuming is Greene’s, since he answered the door without a shirt on. Twenty minutes later, a tall Asian woman dressed in thigh-high boots appears at the mansion. This time, the door is opened by a cute white girl in a robe. And for the last three hours, all four of them—or more, if others arrived before you got there—are inside, drinking and partying in an indeterminate state of dress or undress.”
“Sounds about right,” Mechanic said.
“So, what’s your plan?”
“I could knock on the door and see if they’ll let me into the party.”
“And when they decline?”
“I don’t have anything else to do tonight, so I’ll just wait in my car and see what happens next.”
“How about you forget about inviting yourself to their private party and just wait in the car? I want to see if anything else unusual happens.”
“I’ll call you if anything changes.”
I ended the call and turned my attention back to the golf tournament. The player I had been rooting for just hit his ball from a deep greenside sand bunker, and it miraculously landed on the green and rolled straight into the cup. He now shared the lead with a kid from Australia I had never heard of before. All of the other players were already in the clubhouse, so the round was over. I took another big bite of the peach cobbler and pushed the remote to see what was on ESPN’s SportsCenter. As I flipped through the channels, Morgan Shaw, the prime anchor for WLTV and a former client who used me in ways I would never forgive nor forget, popped up larger than life on my screen. She said that a body was found hanging on Northerly Island, a large, finger-shaped landmass sitting in the lake, just east of the Field Museum and Soldier Field. I’d only been there once, and that was a while ago. I didn’t remember there being much on the island other than vast and empty parkland, a small beach, a venue that hosted musical events, and a yacht club.
Shaw tossed it to a stone-faced reporter standing at the entrance of the island, a bright light making his dark skin look sweaty. He matter-of-factly explained that the body had been found about an hour ago, hanging on a statue in an area called Daphne Garden. The reporter said they were calling her Daphne because of a tattoo found on the side of her right hip. The reporter went on to point out the irony that a woman named Daphne chose Daphne Garden to hang herself. The police were asking anyone with any information about a missing woman in her late thirties with a small build and Daphne tattooed on her right hip to reach out to them to help fully identify her.
Strange story, I thought to myself. Daphne goes to Daphne Garden and hangs herself. Maybe she had a sense of ironic humor at the end. I turned to SportsCenter just in time to catch the top ten plays of the day. On play number seven, my phone buzzed. It was Mechanic. I hit the pause button on the remote and answered the phone.
“The party’s over,” he said.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The goddess came out first,” he said. “She got into the back of an Uber and took off. About fifteen minutes later, Connelly walked out and headed to his car.”
“Anyone else leave?”
“Nope. Greene and the girl are still inside.”
“Anyone else join them?”
“Negative. Everything’s quiet.”
“It’s midnight. You can call it quits.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I need to find out more about Monroe Connelly. He’s connected to Kantor; Jenny Lee, who showed up at Kantor’s apartment the night he died; and now Lance Greene. Connelly appears to be the X factor. I just don’t understand why.”